This week's edition of 10 Songs draws exclusively from the playlist for This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio # 1211. This show is available as a podcast.
SCOTT KEMPNER: Livin' With Her, Livin' With Me
When news broke that Scott Kempner had passed, I felt compelled to add his former group the Dictators' "(I Live For) Cars And Girls" into last week's SUMMER IN DECEMBER! special, and I knew we should spotlight Kempner as our Featured Performer this week. Between his solo work and his work with the Dictators and the Del-Lords, there was no shortage of compelling material to pull together in compiling a proper tribute to Scott Kempner.
We opened with a track from Tenement Angels, a Kempner solo album released in 1992. Kempner showed exquisite taste in selecting America's Coolest Band the Skeletons to join him for the making of Tenement Angels and to support him on the record's tour.
The tandem Tenement Angels tour did make it to Syracuse, and I was right primed for that show. Alas, some circumstance prevented Kempner from getting here, so the Skeletons performed without him. The Skeletons were amazing, as they always were, and I was beyond delighted to see them again, but disappointed that I couldn't see Kempner, too.
That experience had to be deferred.
WINGS: Again And Again And Again
For pop fans my age--old enough to remember the Beatles' impact firsthand, too young to experience new Beatles music on the radio as adolescents and teens--the late Denny Laine was an integral part of our AM Top 40 experience.
That is not a small thing. My allegiance to AM Top 40 in the '70s is the largest part of why I wanted to do radio in the first place, why I wound up writing about rock 'n' roll music, why I committed to the clinically dunderheaded idea of maintaining a daily blog. Syracuse's WOLF-AM and WNDR-AM filled my young ears with possibilities. Denny Laine was an active participant in those possibilities.
I didn't know his name at the time, at least not initially. But I knew some of his work, playing alongside a former Beatle. With Paul and Linda McCartney themselves, Laine was the only other consistent member in all incarnations of Wings. Yeah, sure, everyone thought of Wings as Paul's group, and for good reason. The presence of a Beatle does kinda draw one's focus.
But Wings wouldn't have been a band at all without Denny Laine.
So I heard Laine on the radio, playing his part in Wings hits from "My Love" to "Hi Hi Hi" to "Helen Wheels" to "Live And Let Die" and more. I saw him on TV, strum-syncing "Mary Had A Little Lamb" on The Flip Wilson Show, appearing with the band on the special James Paul McCartney. And if I didn't know Laine's name before, I certainly knew it by the time of the Wings Over America tour in 1976.
No, I didn't see Wings live; the tour didn't come anywhere near enough to Syracuse for this sixteen-year-old to even consider that possibility. But I read as much as I could about it, and that research informed me that Wings' concerts included Laine performing "Go Now!," which had been a huge hit for our Denny in 1965, when he was with the Moody Blues.
Instant respect. And it inspired me to track down and purchase my own copy of "Go Now!," the only bit of Moody Blues vinyl I've ever owned.
"Again And Again And Again" is a Denny Laine song from 1979's Back To The Egg, the final Wings album. It did not get AM radio play, and by '79 I wasn't listening to AM anymore anyway. I came to the song much later--in our current millennium--and I think Denny Laine may have performed it when I saw him play in 2016.
And I love it. It reminds me of the splendor of the AM Top 40 that so captivated me in the '70s, particularly of Badfinger, or like the Badfinger tangent "Don't Know What You're Doing" by the Dodgers, which didn't get much AM or FM play, but should have. As we bid farewell to Denny Laine, it seemed appropriate to spin "Again And Again And Again" on the radio.
Paul McCartney was in a group after the Beatles. Denny Laine was in that group. Wings take flight. Hear 'em soar. Thank you, Denny.
THE ARMOIRES: Music & Animals
The Armoires' new single "Music & Animals" provides a lovely tease of their forthcoming new album, a record this little mutant radio show is very eager to hear (and play). For the moment, though, "Music & Animals" is part of a sublime new compilation album called Embers Of Aloha: A Maui Wildfire Benefit Project. The damage the wildfires inflicted upon Maui and its people is heartbreaking, and we urge you to buy the benefit album (an act of giving that gives back), and/or to consider a direct donation via Operation USA (or whatever charitable infrastructure you favor).
Meanwhile, both This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio and our SPARK! comrade Rich Firestone on Radio Deer Camp played "Music & Animals" this week. And on this coming Sunday, December 17th, Radio Deer Camp will be playing more tracks from Embers Of Aloha, an idea so great that we're stealing it. We're thieves, but we're thieves with a vision...and a purpose! Expect lots 'n' lots 'n' lots 'n' lots of Embers Of Aloha--eight different tracks in all--on SPARK! this Sunday, starting on Radio Deer Camp from 5 to 7 pm Eastern, and beginning again at 9 pm when we kick off our next TIRnRR with another spin of "Music & Animals." For Maui. For our friends on The Time Machine. For all of us, from all of us, and back again.
Mahalo.
THE GRIP WEEDS: 2000 Miles
I'm very rarely ready for Christmas music before Christmas week. Your sleigh mileage may vary. But even though my eight-year-old self absolutely embodied the title role in our third grade production of How The Grinch Stole Christmas in 1968, my heart grows three sizes with thoughts of the Grip Weeds' newly-reissued holiday album Under The Influence Of Christmas. Deck the halls with Buddy Holly! This week's show included the Grip Weeds' cover of the Pretenders' "2000 Miles," and we'll return to Under The Influence Of Christmas come December 24th, with The 25th Annual THIS IS ROCK 'N' ROLL RADIO Christmas Show.
Humbugs need not apply.
PERILOUS: Band-Aid
Yes! Or rather: YEAH!!! That's the title of the freshly-released first album from Perilous, and we approve of this message. YEAH!!! includes all of your past Perilous Fave Raves (like the utterly fantastic "Rock & Roll Kiss," which also appeared on This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio, Volume 5) and other new irresistibles you may have seen them play live (like at my book release party in May, or on the bill with the Grip Weeds, 1.4.5., and Kenne Highland's Airforce in October). IF you've been fortunate enough to witness a Perilous live show. Whatta band!
Perilous is a rock 'em sock 'em New York State supergroup, with drummer Paul (from Syracuse!), lead singer Pauline (from Buffalo!), bassist Renee (from none of your damned business!), and guitarist Bob Cat (from the entire Empire State!). One of the highlights of Perilous shows has been their rendition of "Band-Aid," a song originally done by Paul's previous group, the Trend. The Trend's "Band-Aid" is an unassailable classic of Syracuse punk and new wave; with the inimitable Pauline taking over lead vocals, Perlious' rendition carries the song's legacy with pride and distinction.
THE RAMONES: Judy Is A Punk
As I said about "Judy Is A Punk" in a piece celebrating my 25 favorite Ramones tracks: "Pure Ramones. I mean, one of the purest--if not the purest--of all Ramones tracks. No waste. No clutter. Just a minute and thirty-one seconds of everything great about the Ramones: the tempo, the hooks, the defiant melody, the inherent sense of pop history (including a Herman's Hermits quote), the backing ooooos, the absolute Ramonesness of it all. 1:31. Not a second to spare. Perfect."
About a minute and a half of pure punk (and pop) perfection. With the May publication of my book Gabba Gabba Hey! A Conversation With The Ramones, I've been referring to 2023 as my year of the Ramones. But, of course, I wrote a book about the Ramones because every year is, for me, another exuberant year of the Ramones. Ever since my first spin of "Sheena Is A Punk Rocker" in 1977. I wouldn't have it any other way.
THE DICTATORS: Who Will Save Rock & Roll?
THE DEL-LORDS: Cheyenne
After the Dicators, Scott Kempner formed his own group, the Del-Lords. I don't recall hearing the Del-Lords' 1984 debut album Frontier Days contemporaneously to its release (though I presume it must have gotten some airplay on Buffalo's WBNY-FM). I heard the group's next two albums--1986's Johnny Comes Marching Home and 1988's Based On A True Story--courtesy of the Liverpool Public Library after I moved back to Syracuse in '87. I was taken with the former's "Saint Jake" and the latter's "Judas Kiss," but the Based On A True Story track "Cheyenne" was easily my first favorite Del-Lords song.
Sweeping. Elegiac, but down to Earth even in its Panavision Americana. I guess dreams were invented by God in His infinite mercy. A Dictator rides the high plains.
THE DEL-LORDS: About You
Scott Kempner eventually made up his missed Syracuse date, albeit without accompaniment from the Skeletons. My memory says it was a solo acoustic gig at the same Armory Square venue (known at various times in the '90s as Club Zodiac and Styleen's Rhythm Palace) where he'd been scheduled to play with the Skeletons. I believe it was part of the Zodiac/Styleen's Syracuse Songwriters' Showcase series, which presented songwriters playing their own tunes in an unplugged format.
Please remember that my memory is not currently under oath.
Over the course of many different evenings, Syracuse Songwriters' Showcase included acoustic performances by 3/4 of the Flashcubes (Paul Armstrong, Gary Frenay, and Arty Lenin, sans drummer Tommy Allen, in a set I believe was a defining moment in the 'Cubes' eventual return [and the road to Pop Masters, my favorite album of 2023]), Chris von Sneidern, Ani DiFranco, Kate Jacobs, and others, both local and not local. It's possible that DiFranco and Jacobs played on the same night Kempner played. But like I said: Not under oath here.
I very much enjoyed Kempner's set, but the only specific I can recall is his performance of a Del-Lords song called "About You." I was not at all familiar with "About You" (from the Del-Lords' 1990 album Lovers Who Wander) before witnessing Kempner at Armory Square, but man alive, it was friggin' riveting. You can call it a song about love, maybe a song about obsession or devotion. Whatever else it is, "About You" is a tribute to the pervasive and prevailing allure of one classic 45:
"Louie Louie" by the Kingsmen.
Not the original by Richard Berry. Not Rockin' Robin Roberts, not the mighty Paul Revere and the Raiders, not the Sonics, not Rice University Marching Owls, and for damned sure not the Kinks (whose "Louie Louie" is the most egregious example of one of THE all-time great rock 'n' roll bands making a shitty record). No. The Kingsmen, back in nineteen-sixty-X. Let's give it to 'em, right now.
Watching Kempner play "About You" in Syracuse, I was caught up in the music fan's reverence for one song, the importance of that reverence, how that connection can feel like a platform for more, a springboard for even more still. The connection may be an illusion, the platform precarious, the springboard a leap into nothingness. But we feel it. We play the song. We hear the music. The connection's there, regardless of whether or not it exists in any real sense. Believing in the connection is of greater importance than verifying its veracity.
Scott Kempner believed. That belief informed his work, and it connected with others who also wanted to believe. Oh yeah oh yeah. In "About You," the familiar riff is only implied--y'know, that riff, the one invented by the Kingsmen in (let's face it) inept approximation of Rockin' Robin Roberts, yet an immortal template thereafter--but not delivered until the song's end.
BADADA-BADA-BADADAA!
The connection endures. Let's go!
THE MOODY BLUES: Go Now!
We've already said goodbye. Godspeed, Denny Laine.
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Carl's new book Gabba Gabba Hey! A Conversation With The Ramones is now available, courtesy of the good folks at Rare Bird Books. Gabba Gabba YAY!! https://rarebirdlit.com/gabba-gabba-hey-a-conversation-with-the-ramones-by-carl-cafarelli/
If it's true that one book leads to another, my next book will be The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1). Stay tuned. Your turn is coming.
This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio with Dana & Carl airs Sunday nights from 9 to Midnight Eastern, on the air in Syracuse at SPARK! WSPJ 103.3 and 93.7 FM, streaming at SPARK stream and on the Radio Garden app as WESTCOTT RADIO. Recent shows are archived at Westcott Radio. You can read about our history here.
